Friday, November 6, 2015

Monday, November 2, 2015

The lesson today was that when looking for monsters, skip the dollar stores today and head to the local thrift shop. The one near me sells bundles of loose toys you can pick up for a couple of dollars.

Grabbed a few promising bags and came back with this assortment that must have included someone's Dad's toys because I have a Fisher Price spaceman (the back spacesuit with green face!),a die-cast Japanese robot, a genuine Micronaught and an honest to goodness Dungeons and Dragons figure (the hobgoblin in a blue hood with a green face)!

Sunday, November 1, 2015

It takes a lot to make me geek out in front of celebrities, but this man who has always made me smile. One of my best memories as a kid was the night when my Dad took me see Raiders of the Lost Ark. My only regret is not asking him to say "Very dangerous. You go first." John Rhys-Davies, a formal class act all the way.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

I should have started NaGaDeMon a month ago. I have always had this idea of creating a game based around cheap toys and crap you can find in dollar stores and thrift shops so this year I decieded to put my pocket change where my mouth is and create something. The working title is Dollar Store Dungeon.

With that in mind, I went to the local dollar store today with the idea of getting some good Halloween goodies. I had visions of buying up lots of little plastic skeletons, witches, zombies, spiders, rats and all sort of other creepy crawlies ready to annoy the heroes on their epic quest.

But of course this being October, the store was filled with Christmas crap instead. While the idea of having a Heroes being attacked by Elves and Snowmen is admittedly a little appealing, I think that will have to wait for the expansion set.

About an hour later, I left the store laden down with all this ...

... and absolutely no idea what I am going to do with it.

While there was no overall concept, I did go in looking for a few specific things. The main thing was something or something to use as Game Pieces. The Frozen Guy seemed like a good generic hero. Wanting a female Hero, I got an "action figure" of Helen of Troy. Her blister pack promises Gladiators and Soldiers, which would have been great, but alas they were all sold out.

These 'wooden block' collections seemed like they might be useful for something so I got two packs of those and a dollar store version of JENGA for some extra pieces.

A few file cards, dice and two packs of plastic jewels (rewards?) and some zombie stickers. I'm most excited about the wooden cubes. It occurred to me that with some coloured markers or stickers these could be used as alternate dice. Maybe a dice with different coloured stickers, corresponding to the same colour sticker on one of the monsters(?).

And finally, here are my monsters.

Have to admit, I'm a little disappointed in the haul here. I can distinctly remember seeing cool robots and plastic dragons at the dollar store before, but today I was lucky just to find some safari animals. And of course I wasn't leaving without a dinosaur. Some of the other monsters you see here are things that I had around the house, like Kinder Surprises and Happy Meal toys because sometimes the dog gets her own chicken mcnuggets. It's hardly the horde of fearsome critters I was hoping to find.

One thing I didn't find was something I could use as a playing surface. I was thinking something along the lines of a big chess board, or maybe a checkered table cloth, but nothing stood out. If need be, I'll pick up some poster board. I've been planning a visit to the local flea market, so I'll see what I can pick up there as well.

So what am I going to do with all of this? No idea. The first vague original idea was to generate some sort of dungeon and have it populated with the critters, but just playing around with the blocks I also thought of maybe a wall or maybe a tower. I'm curious to see how this develops, but the only thing I am absolutely sure of, is that the zebra is gonna mess you up.